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Monday, April 21, 2014

Eight Facts Your Average Autism Awareness Hawk Doesn't Know

For many, the concept of autism awareness simply means
blue ribbons, light bulbs, puzzle pieces, and a culture of being continually
perplexed by the “mystery” of their behaviors, despite the fact that dozens of
autistic activists, such as Lydia Brown, Amanda Baggs, and Amy Sequinza have
been explaining the purposes behind these behaviors very clearly for years.What real autism awareness ought to mean is
an understanding that goes beyond homegrown notions and ideas of autism, and
understands autistic people in terms of facts and scientific data, besides just
where it relates to causes, prevention, treatment, and cure, which in the last
two decades, really have not achieved anything for the betterment of autistic
lives.

Ask
even people with PhDs in psychology and psychiatry though if they know many of
these facts to be discussed here, and they will respond with amazement or puzzlement.
In reality, the medical model for autism
has not been very helpful to the world’s understanding of autism, not because
autism is puzzling, but because maybe the medical model is not a very effective
model for understanding autism at all.This model used to be applied to homosexuality, before, like autism is
finally being seen as, an integral part of a human being that cannot be changed
any more than the color of one’s skin.The new concept of autism, being a cultural identity as inseparable as
being Italian or Christian, however, while its proponents can also miss out on
some of these facts, generally know much better than medical ideologists of
certain facts.

#1 People with
autism are far more commonly harmed or abused by their own trusted parents and
caregivers then they are by shady strangers.

The media is flooded with stories of autistic people who
lose their lives in the hands of stranger pedophiles, rapists, and serial
murders after going out wandering and getting lost, yet more commonly, autistic
people are harmed, abused (physically and emotionally), even killed by doctors,
educators, care-givers, and even parents and grandparents than they are by people
who they don’t know. Yet this is rarely
shown in the media, except to applaud these people’s “brave and hard decisions.”Loved ones of autistics who murder them are
often given shorter sentences, even just a slap on the wrist, than parents,
teachers, doctors, and caregivers who injure, abuse, or kill non-autistic
children, saying their lives aren’t as valuable or will not be as happy or
fulfilling, and these people are “putting them out of their misery.”Karen Frank-McCarron, a mother of a four-year
old autistic girl was responsible for murdering her daughter and was sentenced
to thirty-six years in prison, with thirty months of supervised release and a
$25,000 fine on accounts of first-degree homicide, obstruction of justice, and
concealing a homicidal death.Media coverage
was later flooded with descriptions of Frank-McCarron as a hero.

#2 Bullying is far
more than just the product of insecure children.Bullying in essence is much more akin to the
treatment of the Jews in Auschwitz.

Bullying can lead to people (of whom autistics are
particularly vulnerable) never leaving home for fear of being harmed, abused,
or humiliated by the perpetrator.Children (and adults) who do leave can find themselves the victims of
great physical and psychological trauma, illness, and suicide.During the Holocaust, Jews could not own
property, had strict curfews, could not own or operate businesses, or go to
school.In this respect, autistic people
have suffered from bullying the same way Jews and others suffered from the Nazi
Holocaust.Bullying can also be orchestrated
and done by teachers, students, and even entire school boards.Adults, too, get bullied.

#3 Dr. Hans
Asperger was NOT the first person to discover Asperger syndrome.

Both Dr. Kanner and Dr. Asperger studied children who could
by today’s standards be applied with the label Asperger syndrome.In addition to children with Asperger traits,
Dr. Kanner also studied children who could be given the label Kanner syndrome,
and Kanner published his treatise, which later formed part of the basis for
understanding of autism, Autistic
Disturbances of Affective Contact in 1943, while Asperger published his papers on
autistic psychopathy a year later in 1944, which were compared considerably to
the work of Russian neurologist Grunya Sukhareva in 1926. Much of Dr. Asperger's work and writings were also lost in the devastation of World War II. For a lot of autistics, the terms Asperger
and Kanner syndrome are considered neurotypical inventions that do not reflect
the diversity or nature of autistic people. There are in fact autistics with uniquely Aspergerian traits, such as Daniel Tammott, and with distinctly Kanner traits, such as Amanda Baggs, but terms such as Asperger and Kanner syndrome have a great tendency to oversimplify autistic people's unique and individual condition.

#4 Asperger syndrome
CAN bring speech delays.

Albert Einstein, believed by many modern professionals to
have Asperger syndrome, had speech delays.He also had obsessive interests, the tendency to speak in monotone, and
social awkwardness that usually tends to be characterized as being part of
Asperger syndrome, even though speech delays more commonly are associated with
Kanner syndrome.Thus, one either has to
admit that someone with Kanner syndrome can also have Asperger traits, or that
someone with Asperger syndrome can have Kanner traits (both of these basically
the same thing).(Note: I myself had
speech delays from the time I was three-and-a-half).

#5 Applied
Behavior Analysis (ABA) has a long, dark history of abusing children.

Unbeknownst to most parents, Applied Behavior Analysis
used to involve physical punishment, based on behavioralist notions of punishment and reward, including shock therapy to the skin, for
children who did not do as the therapist said, based on the idea of making them
“normal.”It was only when Michelle
Dawson, an autistic woman who suffered from the indignity of ABA as a child, brought
these issues to light that the practice was finally reformed.The practice still remains in affect however,
at the residential Judge Rotenberg Rehabilitation Center for people with
developmental disabilities, of which the United States Congress has only
recently, with the help of autistic activists such as Lydia Brown and Ari Ne’eman,
started to investigate.

#6 Asperger
syndrome is NOT conducive to social and emotional immaturity.

How many of your average
drunken frat boys can be described like this?

#7 Non-verbal
autistics can communicate and often times lead fully independent or
semi-independent lives.

Autistic people such as Amanda Baggs and Amy Sequinza (in
the picture above) are non-speaking autistics who speak very well for
themselves.Sequinza is a poet and
writer who was interviewed with Ariane Zurcher in The Huffington Post.I am in
fact Facebook friends with Sequinza and she has even messaged me personally, in
which I found her communication via social media to be far more articulate and
eloquent than many speaking neurotypical people.Baggs meanwhile has produced a video called In My Own Language, in which she communicates
very effectively and clearly the meaning behind her so-called “mysterious”
hand-flapping and stimming, which inspired autism specialists to reexaminewhat they know about autism.

#8 Autistic People
do not like to be portrayed as puzzle pieces.

For many autistics, the puzzle piece symbolizes autism
(and by extension autistic people) to be confusing and impossible to
understand, when in fact autistic people have been explaining their various
behaviors through pamphlets, music, social media, and other means for over a
decade, though few outsiders cared to listen or even know that they were
publicizing this information.To many,
this puzzle piece is a symbol of autism/autistics through the myopic
understanding of the neurotypical, thus deepening the view of autistics that
the medically-modeled, neurotypical dominated world sees autistics as objects,
not people.